What Does Matt Sound Like?

[0:00] Matt: It comes like a fleeting memory. Whatever you grab just turns to dust. Like eye contact with strangers. A redo of episode. What is it, six or something where we had them on?

[0:23] Michael: No, just like, like as if we're talking to them directly.

[0:27] Matt: Just a Dear Kids episode.

[0:28] Michael: A Deer Kids episode.

[0:29] Matt: Yeah, that could be interesting.

[0:30] Michael: Yeah.

[0:32] Matt: Jamie, cue that up.

[0:36] Michael: We'll have our production team work out.

[0:38] Matt: Work on that. Yeah. Well, hey.

[0:41] Michael: All right. To the shores. Cheers.

[0:43] Matt: To the shores.

[0:44] Michael: I was actually on the shores.

[0:47] Matt: That's true. Where were you? Myrtle Beach.

[0:49] Michael: Mission Beach.

[0:50] Matt: Is Myrtle beach on the west coast?

[0:51] Michael: It's on the east coast.

[0:52] Matt: East coast, yeah.

[0:53] Michael: Close. Ocean.

[0:56] Matt: Different ocean.

[0:58] Michael: Well, it's funny. It's like the beach has always had that feeling for me. And even as we started this podcast, it's even kind of add more sort of gravitas to it in that, you know, I remember when I was like, it wasn't Mission beach, but it was Laguna beach, which is just right up the. Right up the street and right up the beach. Yeah. And I came up with this poem when I was probably like 11 or 10 or something like that, but. And I'm not gonna get it right right now, but like as the waves rise and fall and rise again and fall again. Oh, shoot. Something like. And so am I. Or something like that. I have it written in this little tiny booklet that I love.

[1:46] Matt: 10 year old Michael.

[1:48] Michael: It really was. It was like. But it was like, it was very. It stuck with me because it's like I felt like even then I kind of had this idea of like you kind of have these seasons of life where you're kind of up and down and then like the waves crash and it pulls back, but it comes back again. And the sort of like rhythm of life and that not everything's always jolly good all the time jolly good. Because I remember it was like such like a, you know, like the one of those like early young age existential moments and because I used to even then get up early and would go out and boogie, board and go get coffee and stuff at 10. Totally.

[2:30] Matt: I don't know, baristas.

[2:32] Michael: I have no idea, age wise, what all this stuff happened at. But it was definitely fairly young. Under 15, most of these things.

[2:42] Matt: I wonder why it is that the ocean really is such a profound metaphor for so many things.

[2:48] Michael: Yeah.

[2:48] Matt: Like even I've always been fascinated with. You know, you're in the shallower kind of water and when the wave comes in, when it starts pulling back out, it pulls back out from the. From underneath. So it's like the top of the water doesn't seem to be moving yet. And yet you feel the sand being pulled out from under your feet. And I'm like, God, that's life, isn't it?

[3:09] Michael: Totally.

[3:09] Matt: Just getting rug pulled by the ocean.

[3:13] Michael: Because I used to love that feeling where, uh. Cause it was also a mission beach was actually really good waves. And I remember just being able to like, riding them and getting thrown in and they just tumbling. You have this feeling of disorientation that was like. That was kind of exhilarating, you know, but like, it's something about being. Feeling the powerfulness of something and. And actually having no control.

[3:36] Matt: Yeah.

[3:37] Michael: And it's like, I think you don't. We don't really realize. We just think, oh, look, there's a body of water. And we just. We're in control of this. Until something tells you that you're not like a riptide. Like, if you've ever actually been in one, you're like, oh, fuck.

[3:50] Matt: Yeah.

[3:51] Michael: Like, I can't move forward, can't do anything. Yeah.

[3:55] Matt: I've never been in one, but I have a distinct memory when I was young of being in the ocean. And all of a sudden this lifeguard was like, running and screaming at me to like, get out now. And I thought I'd done something wrong.

[4:06] Michael: Yeah.

[4:06] Matt: And I guess they could see a riptide was forming or happening, and I had no idea what was going on. I was listening recently to this interview with, I think it was on Joe Rogan with this Navy seal. And he. The SEAL was talking about how the water, the ocean, it's like the most dangerous place on the planet. You have no control over what's going to happen.

[4:29] Michael: Yeah. Because I mean, even like tornadoes or hurricanes, like, you see things coming for the most part, but like the ocean just is like.

[4:39] Matt: And when it swallows you up. Yeah, you're gone. No screaming.

[4:44] Michael: I always picture myself as that person that gets. It's on a life raft. And it's like, how do you know you're going to make it back to anywhere? And I always go through these, like, mental exercise. Okay, well, you have current, so you're gonna, you're gonna. You know, how long does that take to get to any place in particular or even see somebody?

[5:02] Matt: Right.

[5:03] Michael: There's just so much vastness that. That's hard to pick up.

[5:06] Matt: Imagine being in the middle of the ocean, no land in sight in any direction, and just being on a life raft.

[5:13] Michael: Yeah. It's like outside of the stars or the sun, like yeah. Where do I paddle to? Or is there even paddling? Because you can wear yourself out.

[5:25] Matt: Well, what do you want to get into tonight? Tonight? Tonight feels exploratory. Well, very much like an in between. I feel this is an in between time somehow.

[5:37] Michael: Yeah. Well, I think for me, like I, I, I'm not so much, I'm kind of like more in a, I guess, attention moment. Kind of like coming to realizations of things of like, you know, whether, you know, we're gonna have to move in the next three or four months. And then I keep forgetting about that. I know, Me too.

[6:02] Matt: How are you not stressed out of your mind?

[6:04] Michael: I know.

[6:04] Matt: I'm stressed for you.

[6:07] Michael: I know. And then just business wise, a lot of decisions I have to make and. Yeah, it's just like, it's like kind of what you've been talking about, like the Selden crisis, you know, it's like you kind of feel that pressure building and it's not necessarily, I think, necessarily in bad ways. E. In a lot of ways it's good because there's a lot of things that have been moving forward in a direction, some positive, some negative. And at some point it's coming to a head where you have to make a decision.

[6:40] Matt: What was the concept we were talking about? Self organized. What was that that we were talking about last week or the week before?

[6:51] Michael: Self organized chaos.

[6:57] Matt: Self organized criticality.

[6:59] Michael: Oh, yeah. Huh. Totally.

[7:01] Matt: It's the single grain of sand that causes the whole system to flip.

[7:06] Michael: And that's so scary. And I think we're very resistant. Like even part of my meditation this morning was about forest fires and allowing the small fires to burn and how in our modern age we haven't allowed some of those small forest fires to burn and it causes like large extreme danger because like, we haven't allowed the, the, whatever you call it, the fodder on the ground, the dead wood. The dead wood to burn off.

[7:39] Matt: To burn off.

[7:39] Michael: Yeah. And I can see that that makes so much sense in our modern world. It's like we don't, we don't want crisis. And so we keep pushing all these crisis away and for them only to build and build and build.

[7:53] Matt: Right. Such a good analogy for the heart too. I had this conversation, I had a very difficult conversation in a relationship in my life recently, which it seems to me now as I'm thinking about it was sort of a forest fire that didn't need to be a forest fire, but there was so much dead wood, so many things that hadn't really fully been Addressed that once the fire got going, it was like everything came out. Yeah. And maybe sometimes that's needed. I don't know. I mean, what is the. Is the analogy limited? Like, what's the right amount of fire to allow? Right. And at some point you just have to, like, bite the bullet and say, well, we gotta let the fire do what it's gonna do and absolve us of our, you know, mistakes of trying to prevent it.

[8:48] Michael: Yeah, you see this in so many areas. Even with the great financial crisis. Instead of letting it burn out all the dead wood, we kind of supported it.

[8:58] Matt: Too big to fail.

[8:59] Michael: Yeah, too big to fail. It's like, you know, that's what capitalism is supposed to allow, that natural burning off of the inefficient and uneffective type of businesses.

[9:10] Matt: And theoretically.

[9:11] Michael: Theoretically, yeah. But we come in and try to, like, no, we can't have that because that's going to cause discomfort. And I'm all for that. It's like, I don't want discomfort.

[9:20] Matt: Well, isn't that the sort of, I guess, the paradox of being human? It's like we build gardens, and as a part of building gardens, we build walls and we insulate and we don't allow the natural processes to happen. But we're also dealing with this complex system, which is nature and biology. And so we really don't know the effects of what we're doing. And as it starts to go bad, we think we can correct it, we think we can protect it, and ultimately we're our own downfall. But the solution isn't, well, go live in the desert. It's like, no, you have to let yourself fail and be honest about the failure and build again. Because what's so good about being a human is we do build things. We do make gardens, we make beautiful things.

[10:10] Michael: And they're worth preserving, too.

[10:12] Matt: Yeah, they're worth making, they're worth curating and they're worth preserving. But it can also be our downfall if we don't. Well, it's like, what if we become too rigid? If you stay in our shores of ignorance analogy, if you stay on the shore or on the island too long, you don't go out to the shores and learn what needs to be learned from the ocean. Everything becomes stale and rigid. And that's conservatism at its worst. Becomes dogmatic, totally totalitarian.

[10:43] Michael: Yeah, Norwegian just keeps kind of coming to my head. It's like it's built below the sea level.

[10:48] Matt: Did you say New Orleans?

[10:49] Michael: New Orleans, yeah.

[10:50] Matt: The way you said that was Nolan keeps coming to my head. What did you say? I went to New Orleans, I don't know, maybe two or three years ago with one of our good mutual friends, and we went on an, like, an alligator airboat tour. And the tour guide, I could not understand a thing he said. That's exactly what he said. It's like, you delight me. I don't know what you're saying, but you delight me.

[11:27] Michael: That's great.

[11:28] Matt: Yeah. So, wait, what about New Orleans? It's built below sea level.

[11:30] Michael: Sea level. And it's like. And then we're kind of baffled by why, like, there was so much destruction when a hurricane hits, you know, it's like. But at the same time, coming back to, like, well, we've built these things, but then we didn't upkeep them. We didn't remember why we built them.

[11:46] Matt: Right.

[11:47] Michael: And. And that's kind of what happened in New Orleans was like, they have all these levees and stuff like that, and. And they didn't take care of them. And so that was part. I mean, part of it is it was a hurricane, but some of the reasons why they failed was because they just weren't taken care of.

[12:02] Matt: Right.

[12:04] Michael: So there's, like, so much responsibility once you start kind of, like, tending something, you know, or choosing not to tend something. Yeah.

[12:15] Matt: What's an example of choosing not to tend something?

[12:19] Michael: Well, I'm trying to think of, like, what I can only think of, like, negative. I was actually thinking about in the positive, but I can think of, like, in the negative, like, you know, the fires in Malibu or something like that. Like, there's a lot of California flowers fires that have happened just because they haven't. They've neglected or haven't allow the. The burns to happen in small ways.

[12:40] Matt: That's not what I heard from Gavin Newsom.

[12:44] Michael: Oh, okay. I'm wrong. Fact check me. You know, it's like we. I was trying to think, like, in the positive way is like, sometimes you need to let something go and not tend to it. Well, I do think there's a certain aspect of it relationally. It's like, there's. And you were kind of mentioning this. It's like you. There's certain things that you need to allow these certain small fires to happen relationally in order for that there's not

[13:19] Matt: a catastrophic one.

[13:20] Michael: But they also find that sometimes in relationships, people tend towards trying to start the fires. And it's like, no, it's not really time for that right now. There always has to be a fire. Yeah.

[13:36] Matt: But Maybe you're just on the other side of that.

[13:38] Michael: Oh, I'm totally on the other side

[13:39] Matt: of that, refusing to let the fire start.

[13:41] Michael: But I think that's the. That's the conundrum. There is like.

[13:46] Matt: Feel like there's a Bruce Springsteen song in here somewhere.

[13:48] Michael: Yeah, he didn't start the fire. It was always burning. That's somebody else tucking heads or something like that.

[13:56] Matt: I don't know. Bruce Springsteen is a. Oh, I'm on fire.

[14:04] Michael: Mm.

[14:04] Matt: Hey, little baby, Is it daddy home? You know, so.

[14:08] Michael: Yeah, that's good.

[14:09] Matt: Yeah.

[14:10] Michael: I don't ever listen to Bruce Springsteen, but when I hear his songs from, I'm like, oh, yeah, that's good. I like that.

[14:15] Matt: He's. He's really something else. It's really. I was talking to somebody recently about how there's these sort of classes of people that come up that sing like someone else. You know, like, there's a bunch of people that sound like Billie Eilish these days. There's a way of singing that. A bunch of female singers sing like this. Yeah, it's a way of. Way they do their words. And it's sort of like, you know, there's all these tropes, like, you know, NPR voices. You know, what an NPR newscaster sounds like. It's like they all talk the same way and enunciate the same way, and they've got the same vocal fry.

[14:53] Michael: And our classical artists, Pascal DJs.

[14:56] Matt: Yeah.

[14:57] Michael: So we have. Next is.

[14:58] Matt: Yeah, right.

[15:00] Michael: Babaldi.

[15:01] Matt: But every once in a while, you run across somebody. Like, I was going to name some males, but I'm going to add some females. It's like Lucinda Williams or Joan Baez. Johnny Cash. Bob Dylan.

[15:14] Michael: Bob Dylan. Yeah.

[15:15] Matt: Bruce Springsteen. I'll put him in there. They don't sing like anybody else because they're not trying to sing like anybody else. They're actually not even trying to make you like them. They're just singing. And there's something so authentic about that that it draws us to them. Whether you like the music or not. It's like, you know, sometimes I think I don't really particular, like, particularly like Bruce Springsteen. And he actually falls into the category of, like, musicians that annoy me since COVID Yeah, totally. Which is such a shame. You know, it's like just. I mean, this sounds so petty, but it's just like, fucking play the song and shut up. You know, it's the Ricky Gervais, come up. Thank your God. Thank your manager. Get off the stage. It's like you came here to do one thing. We don't need your opinions on Israel or Gaza or whatever.

[16:05] Michael: Palestine. Yeah.

[16:06] Matt: Yeah. But there is something so authentic about someone just singing in the way that they sing. And that's so. I mean, that's so much harder than you might think, because, you know, at the same time, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. It's like we grew. We grow up learning everything that we learn by imitation.

[16:32] Michael: Yeah.

[16:32] Matt: What does it take to be unique? What does it take to be yourself? I mean, that's kind of like a lifelong. For most of us, it's a lifelong quest to try to find an answer for something like that. What does it take to be yourself? And every once in a while, you get somebody like Bob Dylan that just. He just is. And doesn't give a flying. What you think about that.

[16:53] Michael: Yeah. Janice Joplin.

[16:54] Matt: Yeah. Yeah, totally. And. And people love that.

[17:00] Michael: Well, I think. I don't know where he says this, and it might be like, just, I'm making this up. But, like, he's like, the more, like, the more different you try to be, the more like everybody else you'll become. And I really do see that aspect. And you. You see this in teenagers a lot. You know, and I saw this also growing up is I had all these friends that were into cool music, but once everybody else started, like, it, then they were, like, off to the next thing.

[17:24] Matt: Yeah, yeah.

[17:24] Michael: And it was like. And then it just kind of. You just kind of became a trope. It's like, oh, you just like that

[17:29] Matt: because nobody else likes it, especially when you're teenagers. Everybody wants to be subversive, but then everybody's subversive and nobody's different.

[17:36] Michael: Totally.

[17:36] Matt: Yeah. I mean, it's really only the people who aren't trying to play that game at all that end up being different.

[17:42] Michael: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely in the coffee world, too. It's like, you know. You know, being kind of, like, kind of a first and especially in our areas is just sort of like we were the one that you differentiated yourself from. You know, we're not like Medici, because we do this differently. It's like. It's like, all right, well, we're kind of all making coffee, and it's all really good coffee.

[18:09] Matt: It's like just coffee.

[18:11] Michael: You know, it's like, you can do it wrong, but there's so many. You know, once you get into the right category, it's like, there's a lot of nuances there.

[18:19] Matt: Is the coffee industry still kind of hoity toity high in its own supply. Kind of elitist.

[18:25] Michael: Not so much anymore.

[18:26] Matt: It doesn't seem like it is so much anymore.

[18:27] Michael: No, because I think just there's, there's a lot of great coffee out there and people are. The bar of actually making great coffee is a lot lower now. So I mean there's, there's definitely consistency in quality that's, that's kind of hard to maintain, but it's, you can like, it's gone from like, you know, it's like bad coffee everywhere to kind of good coffee everywhere. And then to be great, it still takes another like step, you know, but like, but there's a lot of good coffee everywhere, which is really cool. So

[19:01] Matt: I can still just. In my mouth, I can still taste the gas station coffee I used to get, you know, on my drive between Bernie, Texas and Nashville, Tennessee on these, you know, 16 hour drives that I would do overnight or I would stop at Waffle House.

[19:22] Michael: Oh yeah.

[19:22] Matt: In the middle of the night, drink coffee, eat hash browns, smoke cigarettes inside.

[19:26] Michael: Totally. Oh geez.

[19:27] Matt: Yeah, that was a vibe. I'm getting kind of tired. I should probably stop and smoke cigarettes and eat waffles.

[19:34] Michael: Oh, I'd always go to the cappuccino machine and that had like the cappuccino. Vanilla cappuccino would come out. It's like, it's not a cappuccino and it's like not coffee. It's like. But yeah, that was always burned the hell out of your mouth.

[19:50] Matt: There's something nostalgic about that burnt mouth feel though.

[19:54] Michael: That's true. I think that's kind of an interesting topic as far as like, what does it mean to be an individual? And if you try to be an individual, then it kind of like subverts the being an individual.

[20:11] Matt: Well, I mean, that's the problem is if you try to be an individual, what is it that you're trying to be? You can only answer that by looking around you at the things around you, the other people, and be like, well, they seem to be an individual. I'll be like them. And you're already not. Then you're just being like someone else. Yeah, I had this great memory and I'm sure I've told the story before, but when I was in college, it's like my sophomore year, this really great friend, still friends with him. We were roommates for a semester. And at the time John Mayer had just come out. It was like 2001. This was like shortly before 9, 11 and I was learning to play These John Mayer songs on my guitar. And I remember I learned John Mayer's songs are fairly difficult to play. He's probably one of the best guitarists on the planet, I would argue. Successfully. I would argue that. My professional opinion. Yeah. So I'd learned to play the song, and I was really proud of it, and I played it for my roommate, and he said he listened to the whole thing, and I finished it, and I was really proud. And he goes. He says it's really good. He goes, but I want to know how Matt McCloskey sings it. And I just remember thinking. I just was, like, blown back because I had never considered that there might be a way that I sang something. Now. I was always, you know, I was 20, 20 years old, and I think I was fairly slow to mature. I was fairly slow to go through puberty. I was, you know, I was a good kid. I was a straight A student. I was like, I was trying to do things. The. And I had this idea that there was a way to do things, and that translated into my music. It's like, there's a way to play a songwrite. And he planted a seed in my head that I just. You know, it's 25 years later, and it's like I think about it all the time. What do I sound like? I don't know. Sometimes I get a glimpse. Sometimes I'm like, oh, that was me. Whether it's playing music or writing or just conversing, you know, having a conversation with somebody, sometimes my. I see. I see a glimpse of my true voice, but I don't know how I find it, you know, I don't know how to tap into that all the time. I mean, even when we have, you know, we do our podcast, it's like I'm channeling the voice of a lot of other people, you know, and, you know, that's not a bad thing. It's like we stand on the shoulders of giants. That's a good thing.

[22:39] Michael: Totally.

[22:40] Matt: But there is part of me that really wants to be unique. You know, it's like I want to be. I have this sense that I have something truly unique inside of me, but I don't know how to get to it. I want to pull it out.

[22:52] Michael: Yeah.

[22:54] Matt: But I also don't. It's like I don't want to be. What is it like, disrespectful to the blessings that I've been given by those who have come before me. Whether it's Jordan Peterson. He comes up all the time. Or Dostoevsky or Ian McGilchrist or Chesterton Lewis. Jesus Christ.

[23:16] Michael: Lord of the Rings.

[23:17] Matt: Lord of the Rings. Tolkien.

[23:19] Michael: Tolkien,

[23:21] Matt: yeah. This group of good friends that I've never met in person.

[23:28] Michael: Well, I think that's a beautiful thing, and I think that also keeps people from being an individual is that they are afraid to imitate. And I think when you imitate, it's kind of where you find your voice. And I think the more that you imitate, like, there's a. There was a picture that I have, like, early on because, like, I would read all these philosophers and what I would do is I would. I would kind of, like, imbue or like, kind of, like embed myself into their philosophy and live it out, whether, like, mentally, you know. And I just found it was, like, really difficult to live out that philosophy, any philosophy, in. In the way that they were proposing it. And so then I kind of. This mental model is like, you know, like, for you, it's like, I try your shirt on and I, like, try to. I kind of feel it out and like, what does it feel like to be Matt? And I imitate you and I'm like, okay, well, this is too short, or this is kind of like too tight here or whatever.

[24:26] Matt: And I. Yeah.

[24:27] Michael: And so then I start to modify it to fit me.

[24:29] Matt: Me, it's just because I'm more muscular, taller than you.

[24:33] Michael: You're so swole. But I think that's the part is like. The part of it is. Is like imitating and trying on other people's things and then start modifying it to yourself. And then it's something unique. As you see this with coffee shops, too, it's like, I tell people this all the time. Is like, don't be afraid to, like, you know, take what I've done and copy it. Yeah, but it's going to be stale if that's all you do. But in copying something, then you start to kind of feel it out and actually become something more unique to you if you're really intentional about it.

[25:10] Matt: It's sort of theme and variation.

[25:13] Michael: Explain.

[25:13] Matt: Well, you'll be very familiar with theme and variation if you've ever taken classical piano lessons, because that's a lot of what classical music is. You establish a theme, a main melody, and then, you know, Mozart does this a lot. Or Debussy with Claire de Lune. Sorry, I was thinking about Pachelbel's Canon in D, not Debussy. Yeah. Canon in D, everyone knows, Starts with this very simple melody, and then it gets more complex over time, and it goes in all of these different, interesting directions. And the thing about theme and variation is there's no limit to the number of variations that you can make. And that's what jazz is. Jazz is just all variations. It's like you don't play a jazz song, meaning, like you play a Mozart piece note for note. It's beautiful. But you don't play a jazz song. You get something called a chart that sort of tells you the key that it's in and the direction, the general direction. And then you're expected to just play. Like, play like you go onto a playground. What do you do on a playground? Well, you play. What is play?

[26:36] Michael: Yeah, define it for. What's the rules here? What are the rules?

[26:38] Matt: Well, sometimes we have them, sometimes we don't. What game do you want to play? We'll figure it out. It's like no child has ever gone into the playground and not figured it out. So you play, and there's no end to play. Play can go on forever and always be rejuvenated and renewed. You know, maybe in the same way that we have a human nature, we are not blank slates. We don't come into this world a blank canvas. So. Figuring out who you are is partly a process of discovery and partly a process of invention, and that's what play is by its nature. Yeah. So, yeah, I guess you're right. It's like, well, imitate and keep imitating and imitate and imitate and imitate and imitate. And all of a sudden, you'll realize that you're unrecognizable from the thing that you were first imitating because you've become your. You've become such a unique representation of that that it's indistinguishable, and it's actually mind blowing when somebody points it out. Like Kanye west comes to mind. There's these really great breakdown videos where the basis of a lot of his beats are songs that you would never imagine. And it isn't until somebody really reverse engineers it and decomposes it and you hear the original song. I think it's that Jesus Walks. You know that song Jesus Walks With Me? With Me. You don't know it?

[28:31] Michael: I don't know it.

[28:34] Matt: That beat is based on the Allstate commercial.

[28:39] Michael: That's hilarious.

[28:39] Matt: And you would never know it. Yeah, but it's gone through so many variations where it's like. It's fascinating to see the origin point because you can't see the origin point from the song itself.

[28:50] Michael: Doesn't Ed Sheeran do Something like that. He's like, every song is like four chords. And he goes. Or can play with four chords. Have you seen that?

[28:58] Matt: I've seen a video of him explaining how you can play every pop song with four chords. And he goes through and plays, like, six or seven of the pop songs.

[29:06] Michael: Yeah. I don't know. It's just. I just love the idea that, you know, you can. You can try to be original, but, like, it's really difficult to try to be original. And it's like. Yeah, I think that's, you know, even you come back to, like, the master and apprentice. It's like, you know, you kind of end up sort of finding your way as you are repeating something or are mirroring something. It's like you start to see things because we all see the world differently. And so even if the master is seeing the world a certain way and you're copying them, it's like, I just kind of. I see this sort of way of, like, it's sort of like, oh, there's. You see something different because you're different. You're not the same person.

[29:53] Matt: You don't see it the same way. Yeah, yeah.

[29:55] Michael: I mean, even you and I, like, we've been friends for 15 years.

[29:59] Matt: We just worked that out.

[30:00] Michael: We just worked that out. And. And it's like, no matter how much we share in our way of thinking, too, it's like I find that you say something, and it's like it sparks me into a different direction. And then I see something that sparks you in a different direction, and we kind of keep doing that. It's like this dance that we kind of sound like we're almost kind of in the same place, but we're actually not. And I think that's the interesting part, that. That even being in close relationship and even having that similarity, it's like, you are very different.

[30:38] Matt: Well, and sometimes I wonder, you know, it doesn't really matter much because I don't think very many people listen to this podcast, but I worry about repeating things.

[30:47] Michael: Oh, yeah.

[30:48] Matt: And I think often we do have, like, we repeat conversations. It's happened more than once where we've had, like, what we thought was a really good conversation. And we're like, oh, we come up with a title. And then I go like, look. And we've already had that title in a very similar conversation. But the thing is that

[31:06] Michael: there's no

[31:07] Matt: limit to the number of good conversations, and that includes having the same conversation twice, because it isn't the same conversation. Just because you write down the same subject matter or give it the same title or whatever. That doesn't mean it's the same conversation. You might make the same references, but you're seeing it anew. And it's so good to see things anew, especially things you've seen before, because it's humbling. It's like, oh, I didn't know it. I didn't get the full picture then, so maybe I'm not even getting the full picture now. And that's sort of the standing at the base of El Capitan and Yosemite. It's like, oh, I'm small. I'm very small. And it's worth having this conversation again because I didn't get it then and I don't get it now and we're probably going to do it again.

[31:57] Michael: Or you, as you were saying that, I was just kind of picturing this thing, like climber on the bottom. He's like, oh, I've already climbed that and it's not worth doing again. It's like, well, actually you haven't climbed it twice.

[32:07] Matt: Yeah.

[32:08] Michael: You haven't climbed it three times.

[32:09] Matt: Right.

[32:10] Michael: And then you see someone like this.

[32:12] Matt: The 15th time is going to be. Yeah.

[32:14] Michael: And just your intimacy with it has changed. And you're seeing these intricacies, intricate, you know, handhold or whatever it might be that you didn't see before. It's like. Or how many times Alex Honnold like climbed that before. Like he was actually able to free solo it. And just this intimacy with the mountain is just insane.

[32:33] Matt: Right. Well, it's the same like with sex.

[32:36] Michael: Oh, good point.

[32:37] Matt: You don't think like, well, I've already done that. I know what that is. No need to do it again. No, you're like, I want to do that every chance I get. And it's like the people who are sort of like, you know, I guess tend to sleep around or whatever and have the perspective of like, oh, I've already had that. They're very suspect to me. It's like, I don't think you really understand what you're engaging in. If that was like, you're good now. Yeah. I don't think you know what you're doing

[33:11] Michael: or even like the intimacy of a long, A long lover. It's like because you're like, you're going through. So it's not, it's not just about the sex. There's so many other things happening. Yeah. And it's like, it's like there's. It becomes like an expression of your, your relationship but it's not your relationship, you know, And. And I always kind of wonder about people who say, like, you know, they fall. Not fall out of love. I'm trying to think how to say but. Or they get divorced from their. Like, oh, but she's still my best friend, or he's still my best friend. And it's like, so you don't want to be married to your best friend? Like, what is that? Like, what does that mean? You know? Like, I don't know if that's an excuse or what, but it's like, you know, usually it has to do with, like, some sort of sexual aspect of their relationship, and it's sort of like it's such a deeper thing than just sex. But, however, sex is a very powerful part of it, you know, And I think that's the part with relationship. It's like. It's like it's not. It's like if you. You know, if you and I. If you and I's relationship was just about podcasting, which I guess we do every Wednesday, and that is a lot of our relationship. But it's like, it's so much more than that. Like, we spend the first part of this and then the after part of this going into all the other aspects of our lives, and not just, you know, we have to produce a podcast. You know, it's like, more of, like, it's an outflow of the rest of our relationship.

[34:38] Matt: Right, right, right.

[34:40] Michael: Like, it's not our relationship. It's like being married is not just your relationship. It's more than that. I don't know. I don't know where I was going with that, but I don't have anything deeper profound on that one.

[35:01] Matt: Well, where do we find ourselves?

[35:06] Michael: I don't know.

[35:10] Matt: It's not often that we unwind ourselves to the point of awkward silence.

[35:16] Michael: Well, I mean, kind of like, there's so many threads that we've kind of pulled as far as, like, I've always loved. I just love the idea of imitation, and I kind of want to, like, suss that out more because I think that's. It's like not being afraid to imitate.

[35:37] Matt: Well, also, I want to say to not be afraid to repeat. I mean, they're very closely tied concepts. Right. To imitate is to repeat. But I think, you know, we have this phrase in our. What is it? Zeitgeist vernacular. It's like, stop me if I repeat myself. I want that on my list of things to never say. So I don't think we should be Afraid to repeat. I was listening to. I think it's Arthur Brooks, and I think he was being interviewed by Jordan Peterson. He's talking about. I think he's a Harvard professor. He was talking about how one of the most profound experiences of his life was walking the camina in Spain. And he said. He said the Lord's Prayer the whole time. And it's like depending on how fast you walk, I think it's like a two or three or a month long hike. And he's like, all day long, every day at the Lord's Prayer. And the Lord's Prayer is pretty short. That's a lot of repetition. But he was talking about how it just really opened itself. It sort of unfurled itself. The complexity and the depth of it as he said it over and over and over again. And I think there is something to that, to do things over again. There's that great G.K. chesterton quote about how he says that it may not be sheer necessity that makes every daisy alike. It may be that God has never grown tired of making them. And so every day, and I think he says, like a young child who says to the adult, do it again. Do it again. Till the adult is absolutely just dead tired, that maybe God says to the Son every morning, do it again. And to the moon every evening, do it again. And that we have sinned and grown old and our Father is younger than us because he delights in repetition.

[37:42] Michael: I love that. It's like there's an idea of, like meditation in that. It's like, do it again, do it again. It's like even in, I think of again in the Master and the Apprentice, it's like there's this meditative aspect that you don't even know what you're actually gaining by imitating and doing it again.

[38:00] Matt: It's maybe a cheap example, but it's, you know Karate Kid?

[38:04] Michael: I was going to go there. No, it's not a cheap example. It's a great. It's like of our youth, man.

[38:10] Matt: It's a deep example. Yeah.

[38:12] Michael: It's like, why am I doing this?

[38:14] Matt: Yeah.

[38:14] Michael: And then he shows him. He's like, oh, my gosh, I am a master now. Yeah.

[38:21] Matt: Daniel Sun.

[38:23] Michael: Well, it's interesting too, because, I mean, when you start a new job, they're like, okay, hey, we're going to go through all these things. Like, oh, okay. You don't think how valuable that just learning how to do the job is valuable? And. And then you kind of skip steps and then don't put emphasis on things, and then everyone kind of does their own thing, and it's like, there's no real cohesion to it. I mean, I've seen this at Medici at different times where, like, our training is kind of lax or something, or our manager's not doing their job or I'm not leading correctly, and. And people kind of lose focus, you know? But then, like, kind of when you bring people back in and focus them in on, it's like, okay, hey, this is what we're doing, and this is why we're doing it. No, this is important. We need to do this. And, like, I want to do this. And then they start, like, seeing the value of it. Maybe not even that day, but, like, later on in their lives, too. It's like, oh, like. Like, I learned how to talk to people, like, in that job. And it's like. It's like the repetition of that and the seeing and the failure of it, too, is like, it teaches you to pay attention, because that's a part of customer service. It's not just about saying the lines. It's about paying attention. But sometimes to be able to pay attention, you need to have a script or a direction that kind of focuses you on the other person. Like, if you don't. If greeting somebody is not important to you, to the business or whatever, it's like. It's like you're just like, hey, what do you want? It's like you don't care about what's going on. It's just like you're just wanting to get it over with, you know?

[40:11] Matt: It's like.

[40:12] Michael: But if, like, hey, what's. What do you want? Oh, well, that's interesting. Okay, you want a cappuccino? Cool. Well, you know, where you headed to? And all of a sudden, like, something. Something happens, and then. And then the next person. It's like, I feel like I'm repeating myself. And I remember Thomas and I would just. It was at Guadalupe. I remember this specific moment. We're like, let's figure out how many different ways we can greet people. So we made it a game, and then it ended up being really fun because it's like, Now I have 10,000 different ways in the way that you grieve somebody. It's like, hey, what's up, man? How's it going? Oh, man, cool shirt. Some of it's cheesy, too. And it's like, you're going to not get everything right, but if you start thinking creative and then actually you start having fun, too, because you're You're. You're engaged and you're paying attention.

[41:02] Matt: Let's talk about that for a second. Getting things right. Do you think we're supposed to get things right?

[41:11] Michael: Do you want. What answer do you want the right. I'm like, yeah, exactly. I'm like, yes. No.

[41:19] Matt: Well, because your example is just such a. It's like, yeah, that's what I want. I want fun. I want play. I don't want to be right. I want to fall on my face because I said something cheesy and stupid, and you were just like, yeah, that was dumb.

[41:36] Michael: You're right.

[41:37] Matt: No, sorry. Let's try again. That just seems so much more relieving to me. Sort of back to this reference of the forest fire earlier in this conversation that I had in a relationship in my life, that I sort of made this conscious decision, like, okay, I'm going to give up trying to get this right. I'm just going to say what I think. And what I ended up saying was, you know, I'm sort of like. I'm laboring over it now because I'm like, should I have said that? Was that the right thing to say? But then I get hung up on that question. Well, like, what is the right thing to say? I mean, I think the right thing to say. I'm not sure that there's a better definition for that than. And will say what you have to say. Yeah, and it's not going to be right. You know, it might be partly right. It might be somewhat right. You may sin, you may cause damage, and for that you need to repent and apologize. But what's the alternative? It's like the alternative is something like, I know there's gotta be some, you know, example of this in mythology or sort of like, there's got to be some Disney movie. It's like the alternative is you lock yourself up in a tower. It's CS Lewis talking about, the only alternative to the perturbations of love is basically the coffin of hell. You lock yourself up in order to protect yourself, but then you end up, he says, not heartbroken, but unbreakable. And I think, well, if the consequence of being right is being alone, I don't know that I want to be right.

[43:26] Michael: Golly, you're just going to paint this picture of two sides of the line or two sides of the coin. It's sort of like you have this one person who's always wanting to do things right, and then you have someone who doesn't care about doing anything right. And it's like, it's really like two sides of the coin. It's like on one side it's like you're looking for the right things to say.

[43:51] Matt: Yeah.

[43:52] Michael: And that's limiting. And then the other side is like, you're just like saying whatever that, you know, it's like, oh, I'll just be myself. And it's like, well, actually, yeah, it's like, well, maybe that's not great. Whatever be myself means, maybe you're not a great person.

[44:07] Matt: Maybe you shouldn't be yourself. Well, that's the shit of it all, isn't it? It's like, yeah, you probably shouldn't be yourself because yourself is pretty shitty. You should try to be better than yourself, but also you shouldn't be an approximation of somebody else. You should actually also be yourself, but be the better version of yourself. You should be striving. But yeah, I think, well, if you try to say the right thing, then you cease to say anything real.

[44:40] Michael: Totally.

[44:41] Matt: And we've talked about this with AI it's like I have this prediction that I think people are going to become very, very hungry for real thoughts. Which means maybe fucked up thoughts, maybe erroneous thoughts, maybe thoughts that have some aspect of those two things. Thoughts that are reaching for something that's impossible. Thoughts that are unlikely and dirty. And I don't mean dirty like perverted, I mean dirty like they have dirt on them. They've been through the wringer. They have emerged because they've pushed out of the soil like a plant that grows this idea that we're moving into an age in which information is vettable and provable and confirmable. God, that sounds suffocating.

[45:34] Michael: So it's fascinating because we're kind of.

[45:35] Matt: I want to talk to the crazy dude at the bar. You know what I mean?

[45:38] Michael: Totally. It's like we're kind of in the honeymoon phase of A.I.

[45:41] Matt: yeah.

[45:41] Michael: Which is. I mean, I absolutely am amazed and fascinating.

[45:46] Matt: You are smitten.

[45:47] Michael: I'm smitten. You know, and I think that's however, like, just in the last four months as I've been super immersed in this, in this area is I'm starting to realize how much it depends on me, like in how I think about something is also determined in the results I get. So if it's like in the way that I engage, it is kind of what I get back. And so I have to. I have to always be checking myself. And isn't that true of everything? It's so true. And it's like, but, but the honeymoon Phase. It's like, you know. You know, when you first get married, and it's like, whether it's a day or two years, you have this honeymoon phase, and. And everything is just great, you know, can do no wrong. And. Yeah, I feel like that's sort of like where I've had to learn more discipline now with AI as far as, like, okay, what are we trying to accomplish? Do you really know what we're trying to accomplish? And kind of guiding the AI Rather than completely being sort of, like, smitten and blown away. I think that's something that. I feel like there's kind of a maturity there, but I think that's kind of. In any relationship, you kind of have this sort of. Like you're blown away with somebody, you fall in love. But then there's this maturity comes along. Is like, okay, how do you sustain this? And that's a whole different thing. It's like. It's like choosing, like, ultimately or I believe, anyways, it's like you don't fall in love for a long period of time. You choose to be in love. And falling in love happens along the way. And I think that's the really. I think that's a hard thing that we have to kind of, like, grapple with. It's like. There's moments of falling in love along the way, but I feel like most of it is choosing. It's the same thing with relationships, you know, like, whether it's friends or your family or whatever. It's like. It's like sometimes you have to choose your family, even though you can't. You never will not be family. But there's something about that taking that sort of, like, responsibility and choosing.

[48:07] Matt: Well, you still have to treat your family as family, even though you. There's nothing you can do to change the fact that they are family.

[48:15] Michael: Yeah.

[48:15] Matt: You still have to treat them as such if you want that to remain a present. Truth? Totally.

[48:23] Michael: Or even, like, when you look at your kids, you know, I think especially as they, you know, when your kid's first born, it's just sort of like, oh, my gosh, this fucking thing just came out of nowhere. Well, it came out of your wife. But, like. But it's like, it does. It just feels like here's a living human being and you kind of lose that mystery or that amazement as they grow older. And then you have these moments like, my youngest just turned 13, and I was on. Sorry, Hazel's gonna hate this. But, like, so I was at Mission beach, and that's kind of where she was made. And I really just had this moment of, like, wow. Like, Hazel entered our life here, and I was just like, it's like, she wouldn't have. She wouldn't have be. And it was just like this. It's just kind of like we had four kids. It's like, you know, and then now she's our fifth, and it just sort of like she entered our life here, you know, conceived here, you know, and it's just kind of like, really, the. The newness of her kind of like, rejuvenated in me, you know, where it's like, hey, pick up your room or gotta do dishes or, you know, that kind of stuff is like, every day. But

[49:43] Matt: it's so funny the way life is. You. It's like when you said you had four kids, like, that was a reality. And then as soon as she entered the world, you had five. And from that perspective, I won't speak for you. I've had this experience for myself, not with five kids, but with four. It's like you cannot imagine the old reality from the new. Once that child is there, you cannot imagine the world without them. And to even try is a pain that is. It's like looking at the sun. It's like I have to look away from that kind of idea, you know, if ever there's some idea in my head that's like, you know, you and I both had kids pretty young. I was 23 when I had my first, you know, And I think there has been periods in my life where I've thought, you know, because most of my friends spent all of their 20s, if not all of their 30s, single, you know, and there's part of me that wonders, like, what would my life had been like if I had just been single and did whatever I wanted for two decades? And then I just, like, I cringe because I'm like, I can't imagine that life. I can't imagine not having my children, my wonderful children that I'm absolutely in love with. And here's another interesting thing is, like, I don't think you fall in love with your kids. You just are in love with your kids.

[51:21] Michael: Yeah.

[51:23] Matt: It isn't like I've had the experience of falling in love. And it does feel like that. It feels uncontrollable. Right. It's like I'm being swept away. It's like a riptide. I'm being swept away. There's nothing I can do about it. It's not rational. It's not explainable or justifiable it just is what it is. And you're on the ride and you can't really get off. For better or worse. It's like you might deny yourself of the person that you're falling in love with and then you're just heartbroken and heart in heartache and you know you're on that ride. It's the same ride.

[51:55] Michael: Yeah.

[51:56] Matt: But it isn't that way with your kids. It's like. It's like this is such a nerdy reference, but it's just like a git hard reset. It's like it rewrites the git history and there is no version of reality in which they didn't exist. It isn't like meeting a romantic partner where you remember the before and the after. It's like once your kid enters the world.

[52:20] Michael: Yeah.

[52:20] Matt: That's the way the world always has been.

[52:23] Michael: Yeah. Even if they die at a young age or something like that. It's like that doesn't leave you. It's like that's a part of you that's. I mean, I. I know people that have had lost kids in. And it's like it's still part of them.

[52:36] Matt: Yeah.

[52:37] Michael: It's like they don't. They don't. It doesn't disappear. And it's not like, you know, oh, I was. Because like, you could probably say it was someone who lost, like. Like was in love with somebody and they broke up and it's like, oh, there's heartbreak there. It's like that's. It's just different with a kid. You don't ever. You don't ever lose that, you know?

[52:58] Matt: Yeah.

[52:59] Michael: Which I can't even imagine. Which is.

[53:02] Matt: I'd prefer not to.

[53:03] Michael: Yeah. Let's just not go there. Yeah.

[53:10] Matt: But I think it must be the same with God. It's interesting to me that

[53:17] Michael: as far

[53:17] Matt: as I'm aware, you know, nowhere in the Bible does it say that God falls in love with his people. Nor of Jesus. Yeah. It's just that he is.

[53:33] Michael: That's an interesting point.

[53:37] Matt: And I feel like I have some communion with that because I feel like whatever it means to be loved by God, it means that part of me that's inaccessible to other people, that part of me that's even inaccessible to myself, that part of me that has been there since the beginning, since as far as I can remember, that we might sort of call human nature. You know, it's the. If you prefer, you could talk about it as. It's like it's the hardware, the firmware that you come with that part of me. It's like God loved that part. Before I became who it is that I am now. Before I took my first breath, he loved me. And that seems to me to be the claim that's being offered me. It's being leveled at me, leveled against my doubt. It's like, no, God loves you. We're having this conversation about identity. It was like, well, who is that? Who am I? I don't know. And I feel like when I read the Bible and I read. I think maybe especially the Gospel or maybe David. When I read David, the Psalms or. There seems to be this idea that I don't know who I am, but God does, and God loves me.

[55:26] Michael: Hmm.

[55:29] Matt: And that seems to me to be about the best news I've ever heard in my life.

[55:34] Michael: When you think about, like, just what a family represents in general. And I've experienced this too, in a very imperfect but. But a meaningful way, is that

[55:46] Matt: I

[55:47] Michael: feel like, oh, shoot, this goes back to a great conversation we've had, but it's like they hold a piece of me that's kind of a reminder. So it's like I can go off and be somebody else and evolve, too, into something else also. But when I come back to my family, it's like they kind of remind me of who I am. And sometimes in an imperfect way, as far as, like, oh, you're not an entrepreneur or something like that. Or it's like you're Michael, who was into FBI crimes series and stuff, couldn't

[56:22] Matt: decide if you wanted to be in the FBI or the mob or the mob, exactly. The Mafia.

[56:27] Michael: But even I experienced that with my friends. Whenever I went. I went away and got really messed up and kind of went crazy. I came back and my friends were treating me in a certain way, and I didn't know that person that they were interacting with. And a part of it was like, kind of a reminder of who I was. It was grounding in a sense, but then also false in another sense. It's like I'm actually not that person anymore. And I see that happening in families a lot is where, you know, you don't allow the person to evolve. But however, in a positive sense, they remind you of who you are, too, as far as, like, a grounded symbol of who you are. And I think in a healthy family, you see it sort of like, hey, we're going to ground you. We're also going to learn who you are. And I think that's. I think your dad did that with you really well. I think that was an example I saw. As far as, you know, it's like the Matt that I know, I'm going to hold that, but I'm also going to hold it open enough to allow Matt to be somebody different than who I know him. And, you know, I think I experienced that with my dad also, in some respect, which was interesting because more contentious in some areas, but it was actually really fun contention because I always saw, like, my. Like, for most people in Austin, I seem like a conservative, but to my dad, who's a conservative, I seem like a liberal. It's so like, you know, it's mostly just because, like. Like, I just take the other side of, like, like, whoa, we're thinking way too much on that side. So I'm going to present the other part of this. And so. So. But my dad and I had really great conversations, and I felt like we really came to these places where it's like. It's like, you know, I. I could interact with his ways of thinking about things, and he can interact with my ways of thinking about things. I think that's rather than just the label of, like, oh, Michael's from Austin and he's a liberal.

[58:38] Matt: My son moved from Amarillo to Austin and now he's a liberal. Totally.

[58:43] Michael: Yeah. But something that I've tried to. Had. I've tried to kind of, like, keep with my own kids. It's like, you know, it's not to have to agree with. With what my kids. Where my kids go, but there's something that I. I hold that's essential to them, but also need to allow them to be and grow into their own people.

[59:04] Matt: Well, isn't that. That's just the tension of identity. It's. It's essential. We have an essential part of us that needs to be held, but that isn't enough. We also need to. To grow.

[59:17] Michael: Yeah.

[59:17] Matt: To push out into the unknown. To explore. To get things wrong. To return to explore again. Yeah. And to be. I mean, maybe this is why the idea of the west is so romantic, especially the Wild West. The Wild west of the 1800s. It's like to go out and be tried. Be tried by the wilderness, be tried by nature, be tried by difficulty and hardship and the weather and.

[59:56] Michael: But what were they going to do? They're going to tame.

[59:58] Matt: Yeah.

[59:59] Michael: Which is crazy. It's like, I want to go into the wild. I'm going to tame it.

[60:04] Matt: Well, that's the garden.

[60:05] Michael: He's like, totally.

[60:07] Matt: That's. That's the human experience. That's what we do nobody. I mean, very few people. And we look at them very, you know, as like, kind of kooks. It's like that into the wild story, you know, It's a tragedy in the end. And it comes to mind there's this. Read this article once about this Russian man. It was like, Pre World War II, I think, and he was just like. It's like, maybe right when World War II was starting and he was just like, enough of civilization. Fuck this shit. And he went out into the woods with his wife and lived there for, like, 40 years. They had a number of kids. I think almost all of them died, you know, And Russia is huge. Like, they got themselves into a little part of the wilderness where they, like, they were uncontacted for 40 years. And you look at a person like that, like, you're crazy, dude. I mean, also, there's something a little bit romantic about it, like. But no, nobody wants that.

[61:10] Michael: Yeah, yeah, we definitely. We need the tension to be able to. We have to have something to push, a push back against. It's like we're, you know, for kids, it's like your parents. It's like you're there for them to push back because you're safe. And that's something we've talked about a lot, is like. And, you know, I think that's what makes good bosses and that's what makes good teachers, is like, they allow a safe place for people to push back. And those who don't, it's like, it's kind of a tyranny, and you don't form a good worldview of how to interact with the world. And I think that's. I think about that a lot with just, like, training people and, you know, like, just technically, with Medici, it's like, it's like, how do you give people enough structure that it gives them a place to kind of, like, maneuver and to push against, but enough to actually accomplish what you're trying to do?

[62:14] Matt: Well, and even enough structure to be creative.

[62:17] Michael: Totally.

[62:18] Matt: Because I have before and will continue to do so. I contend that there is no such thing as creativity without structure.

[62:26] Michael: Totally.

[62:26] Matt: There's no such thing as creativity without limitation. Well, on earth that is.

[62:34] Michael: So what do you mean by. Why is structure something that's so important for creativity?

[62:44] Matt: Well, it's like, I could say to you, do something creative. I haven't given you enough limitation to even start imagining something creative. But if I put a piece of paper in front of you and I put a pencil in your hand and I say, do Something creative. Well, now you know what to do. You have something to do. There's an infinite number of things that you could write on that piece of paper, but at least you have a category. If I just say, be creative, you know, it's a similar. It's similar to me saying, hey, play a game. It's like, okay, what's the. Is that. Is this the game? Is it a mind game? Are we playing mind games?

[63:23] Michael: Well, so that's funny because, like, I think you and I have had so many. So many experiences with that, like, so many different definable games that we've played that when you say, like, hey, Michael, let's play a game, I'm like, okay, let's play a game. And I. Can I start.

[63:37] Matt: Pick one.

[63:38] Michael: I start firing off from all these sort of, like, variables that I've already worked through. But if you haven't. If you've never actually. But that itself. The limitation.

[63:48] Matt: Limitation of the context of our relationship that you are superimposing onto the question.

[63:53] Michael: I'm just thinking about, like, our. Our drives to Marfa or to Marathon. We're like, let's play a game. Okay. Like, okay, you take this side of the argument, I'll take this side of the argument, and we'll just argue it out. It's like, this is such a fun game.

[64:05] Matt: You know, you are surprisingly good at that game.

[64:08] Michael: It's really fun.

[64:13] Matt: Man, we're doing a road trip.

[64:14] Michael: I think we are. So do a road trip. I'm really loving this idea of family. And, like, it's a placeholder. And it's also a placeholder to say you. To say, I am no longer that person. And it's almost.

[64:31] Matt: It's almost the anti. Definition.

[64:33] Michael: How so?

[64:36] Matt: Well, how do you know you're no longer something without the definition of that something being preserved?

[64:42] Michael: Gotcha. Well, it'd be so different from me like. Like. Like if I were to go to you or to Allison or to my kids and be like, hey, I'm no longer that person. Like, they have a definition, understanding of who that person is. But if I go to someone who's only known me for a year or two weeks, they're kind of like, okay, like, I don't really know who you are. Like, I don't have a history of you, so I don't have anything to, like, to kind of put you in a box with.

[65:11] Matt: You know, you just are who you're presenting to me.

[65:14] Michael: Yeah.

[65:14] Matt: At the moment. Yeah.

[65:15] Michael: Yeah. And. And, like, that box is actually helpful and valuable because it gives you something to kind of like, okay, here's how I've changed.

[65:23] Matt: Well, it also allows for. It allows for this experience that I've experienced maybe a couple times in my life on both sides of the relationship. But it allows for something like, you know, you're with somebody that you haven't seen for a long time, and you're hanging out with them and you know them well, you're intimate with them, and you might say something to them like, it's really amazing. You used to be so reserved. And I've just noticed that you're just. You just seem very at ease and open and not sharing too much, you know, but just very confident, but not in an overbearing way. And it just makes me so happy to see the way that you've emerged.

[66:12] Michael: Yeah.

[66:14] Matt: And I think, well, it's like if I hadn't known the person before, then I couldn't make that observation. And if I can't make that observation, then, I mean, when I've been on the receiving end of that, it feels like such a blessing to have somebody bear witness to my change, to bear witness to my growth. And for me to even recognize it, to say I hadn't even realized that, it's like, hallelujah. Yeah, you're right. I did used to be very reserved. I did used to be very pent up. And I kept everything inside and. And I'm so glad that I don't. I'm not that way anymore. And to reflect on that. But it's like we need. We need people in our life who can bear witness to the change, even to see the change for ourselves.

[67:00] Michael: Totally.

[67:00] Matt: Because there's got to be a good analogy for this. But I learned this word this week, iden, potent, which basically means a change that's only made once. As many times as you try to make the change, it won't make it again. It's important in programming.

[67:25] Michael: Sadie, what is it called?

[67:26] Matt: Idenpotent.

[67:26] Michael: Idempotent.

[67:32] Matt: It might be. Might be a failed analogy here, but

[67:36] Michael: was it like once you see you can't unsee kind of thing?

[67:39] Matt: Yeah, maybe something like that.

[67:40] Michael: Okay.

[67:42] Matt: I think we tend to think of ourselves as fairly static. Like, I am who I am because that's my experience of myself. I mean, it's like this is where you get the idea of solipsism. I think it's like, I am who I am. Right. Except I'm not. I am becoming. I am myself, and yet still becoming and without relationship, without someone to bear witness to sort of have that placeholder, you know, without my mother saying, it's like, I knew you before you took your first breath. I knew you when you were inside of me, and there was a uniqueness to you there. And I've seen you change and grow through all of these stages, and then it's important, you know, it's like with you and I, it's like 15 years. That's a long time. But there's other relationships in my life that are much shorter, and even there's change in those relationships and change in me in that. In those timeframes and for those people to hold those placeholders, to say, I see you, I bear witness to you, to your change. That's the only way that I really see my own change.

[68:43] Michael: Yeah, it's in relation to others.

[68:44] Matt: We don't track it.

[68:45] Michael: Yeah.

[68:46] Matt: We only track ourselves in relationship to others. Maybe is one way to say that. Which is maybe back to the paradox or the conundrum of identity. And is there a uniqueness to me, or am I just imitation? Well, maybe the crux of it is, like, well, you wouldn't know the answer to that without the imitation, without the other people to bear witness to you.

[69:11] Michael: Or even the guy that told you is like, well, how does Matt sing that? It's like he was bearing witness. It's like, hey, what you were doing is probably amazing. But he was like, actually, I want to hear how you sing it.

[69:22] Matt: Right.

[69:22] Michael: And I think that's. That's something that's really powerful as far as having people in your life to just be like.

[69:28] Matt: To say, I want to know you.

[69:30] Michael: Yeah.

[69:31] Matt: Not the performance of you. Not the performance of someone else.

[69:35] Michael: Totally.

[69:36] Matt: Like, I'm actually hungry to know you. I'm actually really interested to know you.

[69:41] Michael: Yeah. That's so funny, man. I can really see that whole idea of, like, the performance of you. I definitely can see how I do the performance of me. And it's really funny. Like, it's quite humorous, honestly.

[70:01] Matt: Well, what were you saying earlier tonight before we started the podcast about, like, being diligent and determined?

[70:07] Michael: Oh, yeah.

[70:08] Matt: And owing that to your faith. And yet the more you're diligent and determined, the more you're like, well, I'm diligent and determined because I'm diligent and determined because that's the way that I am.

[70:22] Michael: Totally. Yeah. It's not like it becomes more of an idol. Yeah. It's such a fascinating thing as far as, like. Like, I've gotten. I've persevered through a lot of things. But when I have to, when I'm really honest about it, it's really because of my faith that has given me hope to move forward in difficult parts. And then I experience perseverance. And so, like. So, like, there's this part where I can. I can start to kind of take on this sort of like, no, I'm just the guy who holds up under pressure. It's like, well, yes, but why. Why do you hold up under pressure? It's because of, like, your faith. It's like what you believe. It's what you think about the future. It's what you believe about other people, you know, and, you know, it's like. But that all those things you believe are outside of yourself, you know, it's like you don't hold any of those things. And because, like, once you start to be the definer of those things, and it's like, then you're trying to hold up this false world that's just going to come crumbling down around you.

[71:30] Matt: That's a great way to put it, once you become the definer. We are not the definers.

[71:36] Michael: No. Which is obvious, because anytime that you start to take on the role of God specifically. But you are what I say you are, rather than. Here's what I understand about the world. And you're something that's outside of me, that I cannot define.

[71:58] Matt: But you can define me.

[72:00] Michael: Yeah, man, that's fascinating. Yeah. Just that God. It's like when you find. When you. When you find. It's like that sort of like you need a reference point outside of yourself in order to. To look at the world, you know, Like. Like, if you think you're the one who holds sort of the definitions of how things are. Like. Like, my kids are this way, and I. I tell them who they are. It's like. It's like. It's like. It's like. Nope. It's like they're discovering something.

[72:41] Matt: Don't look forward to many good Father's Day cards if that's your perspective.

[72:45] Michael: Totally. It's like. But there's something unfolding before you, and you're an observer and a beholder,

[72:53] Matt: and

[72:53] Michael: if things are in the right place, you're also someone who names things, too. And I think that's a very powerful thing.

[73:02] Matt: I was just thinking about that. It's like, we are not the definers. And yet we have been given some authority to define. An authority to name. Like, God tells Adam to name the animals. God doesn't tell Adam the name of the animals. He gives him the authority to name. But that authority is sort of given in good faith and it seems somehow provisional, which also means it reminds me of just the sort of miracle I think of the Declaration of Independence in the United States Constitution that these rights are inalienable because they are not given by man, they are given by God. So no man can take them away.

[73:58] Michael: Yeah. The reference points outside.

[73:59] Matt: The reference points outside God could take them away, just like God can take life. And it reminds me of the humility of that Lord of the Rings. I need to memorize this word for it. But Gandalf, when Gandalf's talking to Frodo about Gollum and says many men deserve death but do not get it, many men receive life or deserve life but receive death. How does he put it? Receive death but deserve life, can you give it to them? It's like, if you can't give life, then you should be very careful about giving death.

[74:36] Michael: Yeah.

[74:38] Matt: And, yeah, we've given. We've been given some authority to name things. We've been given some authority to define some things, but we should be very careful about it.

[74:53] Michael: Yeah. That's beautiful. I love it. Well, yeah.

[75:04] Matt: Here we are.

[75:05] Michael: Here we are.

[75:06] Matt: Feels like the end.

[75:08] Michael: It does. Well, it's just the beginning for us. We have a whole nother conversation after this. Thanks for coming out, guys.

[75:15] Matt: Thanks for being with us.

[75:16] Michael: We love y'.

[75:16] Matt: All. Love you out there. Chamath in my hand. Bye, bye.

[75:23] Michael: Bye, bye. This.